School News

March 8, 2017
Dr. Stephanie Wheeler, associate professor of health policy and management, has received the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health Early Career Public Health Research Award, presented to early-career professionals for excellence in teaching, research and mentorship.

March 2, 2017
Dr. Dorothy Cilenti has been named interim director of the Orange County health department, effective March 1. A clinical associate professor of maternal and child health at the Gillings School, Cilenti also directs the National Maternal Child Health Workforce Development Center.

March 2, 2017
Drs. Cynthia Bulik, June Stevens and Deborah Tate wrote chapters in the third edition of Eating Disorders and Obesity: A Comprehensive Handbook, published this year by The Guilford Press.

March 2, 2017
Dr. Bryce Reeve and colleagues at RTI found supporting evidence for the reliability of a survey instrument that assesses patient-centered communication in cancer care settings. Their findings were published Feb. 10 in Patient Education and Counseling.

February 28, 2017
A new report, co-authored by Dr. Beth Mayer-Davis and published in JAMA, indicates that adolescents and young adults with Type 2 diabetes bear a significantly higher burden of potential diabetes-related complications – especially among minority youth with this disease – than do their peers with Type 1 diabetes.

February 23, 2017
Alexander Breskin and Drs. Adaora Adimora and Daniel Westreich are co-authors of a PLOS ONE study that identifies U.S. counties in which the prevalence of HIV is high among women, as compared to men. Black women from poor areas in the South face a disproportionately high burden of HIV.

February 23, 2017
Drs. Dilshad Jaff and Anant Kumar describe hookah smoking in the Kurdish region of Iraq as an emerging public health threat. The ongoing armed conflict, economic distress and easy availability of tobacco contribute to the problem.

February 20, 2017
Dr. Suzanne Maman, professor of health behavior, and Sally Herndon, a health behavior alumna, have won, respectively, the Greenberg Award for excellence in teaching, research and service and the Barr Award, for contributions in public health by a Gillings School alumnus/a. Maman and Herndon will be honored at the 2017 Foard Lecture, to be held on April 27.

February 21, 2017
A new study by nutrition researchers Drs. Shu Wen Ng and Barry Popkin — and their collaborators in Mexico — found that Mexico’s tax on sugary beverages caused the purchase of those beverages to decline during the second year of the tax. Earlier research had shown an immediate decrease in purchases in the tax’s first year. The study is published in the journal Health Affairs.